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U.S. BOMBS
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A band that had long passed me by in my general oblivious state, not being Californian, and furthermore I guess, not caring an Ig about a bunch of undiscovered SoCal saints. This opinion wasn’t helped by my jitterbug viewing of the recent People Like You DVD where I lumped ‘em as songless old soaks with speed-addled, and no doubt skedaddled sinuses. However, after a few plays of this new record they ruffled the feathers on my ducks ass pretty much as I like it, with slices of scrotty scrat-punk life on the window ledge looking out down the bus lane, having seemingly sold all their records for some cheap skag, just keeping some Pistols, Dead Boys, Ramones, Clash, a few Thunders lines and the voice like Stummer and Black Halo Billy Hopeless sharing a spliff with sandpaper as skins, they have a teetering on the twitch pulse of a pathetic shambles and an overwhelming slipshod spirit that pulls them through, and no doubt has done all these years. ‘Heartbreak
Motel’ owes the whole damn shebang to ‘Julies Been Working For The
Drug Squad’ and lumps of ‘London Calling’, and is a prime example of a
tepid tale of drug woe balancing like an alcoholic cokeheads scales on a
razorblade edge between pitiful pathetic whimpering and a shrug of so it
goes so long adios resoluteness, washed down with a few mouthfuls of Dion
and Sylvain. ‘Destroy The Nation’ and ‘We Are The
Problem’ turn their attention to the state of the nation and world
with some ill-judged sloganeering in classic Strummer style, where ‘Guns
Of The West’ is a severely stoned Clash out-take in the style of
‘Spanish Bombs’. But with it’s endearingly naff harmonica this track and
‘Tonight’s Shane MacGowan at last orders waltzing teary eyed with the
barmaid in memory of Kirsty MacColl suggest more of this may be in order.
Much of it skates along similar lines but for what passes as Calif punk
nowadays I’d rather these guys keep on their road to nowhere. Cheers! |
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-Stu Gibson |
